TORONTO _ The frustration of losing had reached enormous levels, but Ryan Strome finally ended it when he finished off a pass from Boo Nieves to score 1:48 into overtime and give the Rangers an unlikely 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday at Scotiabank Centre.
Alexandar Georgiev made 44 saves to keep the Rangers in the game, as they ended a five-game losing streak and a nine-game overtime losing streak.
Rangers coach David Quinn has been imploring, pleading and begging his team to shoot more. But it just hasn't seemed like a natural thing for the Blueshirts.
Saturday night, the Rangers had periods where they fired shots, as instructed to, but there were still times when they passed up shots they could have taken, including one sequence late in the second period where Pavel Buchnevich passed to Mika Zibanejad instead of shooting on a two-on-one, and Zibanejad, at a bad angle, tried to pass it back. The Rangers did not get a shot on the play.
Buchnevich finally broke the ice, though, scoring an ugly one 19 seconds into the third period as he put in the rebound of a Brady Skjei shot after Skjei and Brendan Lemieux drove the net and fell in front of the goal crease, creating a pile of bodies in front of Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen. After he scored, Buchnevich punched the air in celebration.
But Toronto tied it on Zach Hyman's goal off a scramble, when John Tavares corralled a rebound in the slot and dropped a pass for Hyman, who swept the puck into the net for his 19th goal of the season at 8:33.
With his team having lost four straight in regulation, five straight overall, and 12 of the last 14 (2-7-5, with both wins coming against the Devils) Quinn was desperately trying to figure out a way to win one against a Toronto team 24 points ahead of them in the standings.
"It's obviously been a tough stretch, here, and nothing feels better than winning," Quinn said before the game. "We've talked ad nauseum about our situation and our struggles. We want to win a hockey game. And tonight, there's a way that we're going to have to go about doing it against a team of this magnitude, and with the talent that they have."
The way that Quinn believed the Rangers needed to play against the Leafs was by being physical, and by shooting the puck often. In the first period, the Rangers were credited with 14 hits, compared to seven for the Leafs. And after a start spent mostly in their own end, where they were outshot 7-1 in the first half of the opening period, the visitors kept firing shots from all angles, even though they missed the net a few times.
With Chris Kreider not on the trip, Brendan Lemieux skated in his spot on the first line, with Zibanejad and Buchnevich, and Quinn moved some pieces around on his lines, keeping the three youngsters, Filip Chytil, Lias Andersson and Brett Howden in the middle. Chytil played a second straight game between Vlad Namestnikov and Vinni Lettieri, with Andersson flanked by Jimmy Vesey on the left and Strome on the right and Howden playing between Brendan Smith and Boo Nieves.
All three young centers looked good against the Leafs, with Andersson in particular driving the net hard and finding himself in the middle of some quality scoring chances. But through two periods, no team had scored a goal.
